Forever is Long, Indeed
by Golem XIV
Summary: One-shot. Raven contemplates the consequences of Starfire's adventure in the episode "How Long is Forever".


**Disclaimer:** Nah. I don't own 'em. I think DC does, but don't quote me on that.

* * *

 **Forever is Long, Indeed**

The wind flutters wisps of my short hair around my face and rustles loudly in my cloak. I fold my legs in lotus position, my hands resting palms up on my knees, the thumb and middle finger on each hand touching to allow my inner energy to course freely through me as I levitate just above the edge of the Tower's roof.

Whipped by a gust of wind, my cloak disturbs a necklace of hollow glass beads hanging around my neck, making them tinkle almost inaudibly. I would smile at the sound, but I have more important things that occupy my mind.

It is impossible. Unthinkable. And the consequences… unacceptable. How did it happen? _Why_ did it happen?

* * *

"OK, I feel like a wind chime," I say with a feeble smile on my face, my mind retreating into sarcasm, recoiling from the shock it had just been subjected to. I disconnect myself almost completely from my surroundings, keeping only enough outward rationality to mask my utter astonishment at what I had heard.

I go through the motions of celebrating the _Blorthog_ or whatever it is that the improbable Tamaranian festival is called. But it is important to Starfire, and I'll go through a lot worse seeing it means so much to her. Especially now, if what I'm beginning to suspect –

No. I must think on that with a clear head and an unburdened soul. It is the least I can do for her. I owe her that much. I owe it to all of them.

The good thing about being the rude creep of the team is that nobody's surprised if my smile is sour or my words biting. Nobody even expects me to celebrate for long. I stay for the absolute minimum of time necessary to hide my need to be somewhere else and then I leave. Yay for me and the sacrifices I make for my friends.

I float to the Tower's roof, where I hope no one will find me. By now I know that my room is simply a target for an endless stream of well-intentioned but smothering questions asked through a closed door. Azar deliver me, why is it that they insist? They know the answers already. Yes, I am fine. No, there is nothing I wish to talk about. No, I will not play a game of stankball. Or referee it.

I sigh and try to bury my sarcasm. As much as it is a self-defense mechanism, it is ugly, hurtful and undeserved. But I can't help it. Realizing my thoughts have strayed, I feel a sudden irritation; my mind should not be wandering off like that. I have a specific issue to worry about. Running away from it, as detestable as my problem may be, will not help. Brushing all other concerns aside from my mind, I concentrate first in finding peace.

 _Azarath… Metrion… Zinthos…_

The significance of the words is unimportant. The rhythm is the key. I repeat them over and over until they become liquid, their level rising while I drone them, covering first my legs and then enveloping my belly and washing over my breasts and climbing over my shoulders and filling my mouth and eyes and ears. I keep whispering them until they immerse me completely in their warm waves.

I am at peace.

I place my emotions in front of me like a dealer opening a pack of cards. Red for anger, Yellow for rationality, Pink for joy, Green for bravery, Grey for fear, Orange for lack of will. Purple for affection, trumping them all.

I pick the cards up and shuffle them in my mind, spreading them again before me. Unsurprisingly, Purple is still on top. A sigh leaves my lungs; it is not like I did not expect it. I care for them, more even than what I'm prepared to admit to myself. But what can I do? The promise is absolute. There is nothing that can be done.

Except for the shocking revelation that she went twenty years into the future. That there _is_ a future.

This is all your doing, isn't it, father?

I can almost hear your laughter piercing my mind and rending my soul. No, it is not enough for you to make me your gem, to use me and discard me, to force me to be the one that brings on the end of the world. No, that torture was not enough for your twisted, demonic sadism. You wanted to see me suffer even more. You wanted me to meet them, and befriend them, and come to care for them, knowing that I will be their executioner, craving as much as shunning their affection and their recognition, conscious of the fact that it will last only a few short years, and that then I will kill them all. Together with everyone else.

You wanted to play a little more with your dear daughter. You permitted me to feel hope, so that I will see it dashed and broken and burned, together with the remnants of my soul. You allowed me to feel love and care and trust, so that I can watch them trampled and sullied and destroyed by my own hand.

And now this. Another false hope. Another mirage in the desert. Another light in the darkness, shining beguilingly, beckoning me to follow it just so it can lead me astray and leave me even more lost, agonizing and desperate.

Because the end of the world will come. I should know, I am its bringer.

Except it all changes if she… is gone.

She disappeared from our lives and there were consequences. Hard, dire, impossibly hopeful ones. But she returned and history has been switched to its proper track. What she does not know, what only I know, is that the track leads to… to my birthday.

To the end of the world.

But if she is gone, the track of history changes. Twenty years from now, there is a world. There are people. We are alive. Not happy, perhaps, but alive.

I can accept the fate she saw for me. I can even accept the fate she saw for the others. Forgotten Cyborg, lonely Nightwing, Beast Boy behind bars. We are heroes, after all. Sacrifice is daily bread for us. But I cannot, will not pay the ante.

I clench my teeth, trying to deny it. I shut my eyes, refusing to see it. My hands stop my ears, rejecting its whispers. My fingers press into my temples, trying to squeeze the knowledge out. My nails rake my scalp, trying to bury it in physical pain.

But denial and refusal and rejection cannot change the facts. If Starfire is here, the world will end. If Starfire is gone, the world will go on. It is as simple as that.

Seven billion souls cry to me for mercy. Azar help me, I don't know if it is enough.

One life for seven billion. One happy smile for the laughter of countless children. One affectionate gaze for myriads of lullabies sung by loving mothers. One joyful soul for seven billion others.

I cannot do it. Sweet Azar have mercy on me, I cannot do it.

Impotent rage rises in me. Directionless hatred consumes me. I hear your laughter, father. I feel your twisted pleasure to see me in this agony. I sense your arrogance as you enjoy yourself, knowing that whichever path I take I will play right in your hand.

My eyes open in surprise, but they don't see anything. The realization of your intent bursts over me, brought by that knowledge. You have weighted the dice and you have marked the cards. Whatever I do, wherever I turn, you will win. However I twist and squirm and writhe, I end up staring at the seas of lava and the broken buildings and the forest of grey, lifeless stone statues.

I see it now; you made sure that all my choices lead to the same end. The only way for me to prevent the end of the world is to kill Starfire. But if I kill her, my soul will be forfeit, and you will take it, and use it to open the portal and enter our realm. A few years later, maybe, but you can afford to wait.

The withered lips of despair kiss me, sucking out my soul. The clawed hands of anguish tear at my insides, burning my heart to bright, hot ashes. The stench of hopelessness fills me, searing my lungs.

And then the truth opens for me like a book, the pages swirling, coming to rest halfway through. I cannot read what's written, but I don't need to.

Therein lies your mistake. By giving me false choices, you have given me hope. By cheating the rules, you made it possible to me to play the game my own way.

You will never know, father. You will always remain ignorant of friendship, forever unaware of love, eternally blind to affection. You are nothing but an empty, lonely shell that tries to consume everything it sees, gorging gluttonously on pain and misery and suffering, but the hole in your soul can never be filled. Even if you win, there will come a day when you will destroy and devour and defile everything, leaving you alone, floating in the void of your own making. And only then you will see that you have lost. Only then you will scream in anguish, your throat raw and bloody, your voice echoing through a multitude of empty, razed universes, your torment deepening the already bottomless pit in your soul. And your hunger will grow and cloud your reason until you can't resist any more, until you first take a small, experimental bite of your own self, then indulge in your last orgy of feeding frenzy while you consume your rage and your hatred and your arrogance, until the emptiness in your soul finally folds into itself and the void finally fills the void and it cancels itself out and you vanish forever not even with a whimper, blinking out of existence, a darkness turned off, a coldness too frigid for itself.

I never thought I would think this, but I pity you, father.

But for me, there is another fate. For all your power, for all the Prophecy, I now know you cannot harm me. You are too weak; you have never tasted defeat. You are too frightened; you have never been wounded. I have. You made it so.

I will wait for you, father. I will face you, and I will win.

Because when we meet, I will not be alone.


End file.
